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A. LETTER 



TO 



Y3 



WM. HOWAED ECJSSELL, LL D, 



ON PASSAGES IN HIS 



<( 



DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH." 



BY ANDREW DICKSON WHITE, 

PROP. OF HISTORY AND ENGLISH LITERATURE IN MICHIGAN UNITEEEITY. 



FROM THE LOIS^DOI^ EDITION. 



SYRACUSE : 

TSTJAIR, SMITH A MILES, DAILY JOCENAL OPFICE. 
1863. 



■71 Uf 






A. LETTER. 



Sir: — A recent writer in a London journal having 
sketciied tlie tricks of a Parisian juggler, spake on tliis 
wise : — " M. Edmond might have been a Spurgeon, a Gum- 
ming, a Hume, a Morrison (of the pills,) a Montalembert, 
a D'Israeii, or a newspaper correspondent." 

This bit of phrasing is, as you see, in the most approved 
London style— jaunty, knowing, and so thrown as to be- 
foul slightly two men ot whom Europe has reason to be 
proud, and who were not in the least concerned in the sub- 
ject discussed. But it is chiefly interesting as a confessioji 
regarding the worth of much of the famed correspond- 
ence published in certain London newspapers — a confes- 
sion from one of those who know it best. 

From such eminent authority I dare not dissent as re- 
gards the manufacture of London correspondence in gen- 
eral ; but it is precisely because I have dissented in regard 
to your correspondence in particular, and because you have 
not been placed in the same category with your quackish 
imitators, that I take the liberty of writing you upon your 
♦'Diary North and-South." 

No sane man cares to answer the letters which voursuc- 
cessors are writing from America. It would be absurd to 
refute them when they so abundantly refute themselves ; 
and it would be unjust to blame them when they merely 
manufacture the exact article for which they are paid. But 
the ju8tifi.cation for writing you is simple. Your "Diary," 
"while it gives lessons for which thoughtful Americans 
thank you, contains errors in observation, deduction, and, 
worst of all, in preliminary judgment, which ought to be 
shown. 

My excuse for writing at so late a day is that I have 
hoped to see you opposed by some champion better armed. 

To clear the way toward your smaller errors, let me 
show what Americans think of your great error. 



This great mistake — mother of a vast brood of wrong 
judgments — is that, before the present v/ar, there was 
throughout the United States a liate for every thing Eng- . 
lish ; "that it had become morbid ; that the present bitter- 
ness is but that old chronic hate made acute by disappoint- 
ments in our civil war. 

The importance of a right understanding is my excuse 
for asking you to look back along our common history. 

jSTo candid man can wonder that an anti-English spirit 
lingered in America after the War of Independence. 
Every statesman's mind bore remembrances of that pe- 
culiarly English series of insults of which Wedderburn's 
treatment of Franklin was the climax ; every hamlet had 
its traditions of the allied British and Indians. 'No man 
could forget that at Wyoming the British were to the In- 
dians as three to one. 

1^0 more is it matter for surprise that the war of 1812, 
and the policy which led to it, revived the old spirit. In 
the light of their own feelings at the "Trent" affair — the 
unauthorized seizure of two men not British subjects, 
from a packet ship, in a distant sea. Englishmen can hardly 
be surprised that the Americans were exasperated at the 
" Chesapeake" affair — the authorized seizure of their own 
citizens, upon their owii coasts, from an imperfectly 
equipped American frigate. 

Nor can it be wondered at that British employment of 
Indians in this second war, after the dreadful experiences 
of the first ; and the abuse heaped by the greater portion 
of the English press on everything which Americans ven- 
erated, made matters still worse. Yv^hen bitter things are 
said in America of the British Government, it w^ould, per- 
haps, but be fair to remember that many men are still liv- 
ing who saw the mangled bodies of women and children — 
victims of the British allies ; and that there are thousands 
who remember seeing even worse names- applied by Eng- 
lish journals to Jackson and Clay than the same journals 
gave, a few years since, to IS'apoleou the .Third ; or than 
they now give to Lincoln, Butler, and Seward. 

And, even if all this could have been forgotten in a day 
(would that it might have been !) what chance has since 
■been given for any growth of good feeling? 

Look at the tourists who have preceded you ! — and at 
their books I 



Two or three have heen kindly and ftiir. One was so 
witty that, though we winced as he stung us, we joined in 
the world's laugh afterward and confessed ourselves fool- 
ish ever to have been offended. But the others— poor 
souls !— a week in one ^reat State, a day in another,_an hour 
in a third— pirouetting from great city to great city— not 
deigning to look at the vast intervening spaces where the 
strongest elements in the new civilization were devel- 
oping—gathering husks and rinds to be paraded in Eng- 
landlis fruit— too dignified to suffer acquaintance with the 
sturdy men who were grappling with the great problems^ 
presented ; only condescending in noting the idioms ot 
wagon-drivers and bar-keepers; too careless to reason 
upon the great work going on ; only careful to blame the 
nation for'not abolislung s'lavery, despite the Constitution, 
as they now hlame us for having striven to restrict it, m 
accordance with the Constitution ; too blind to see that a 
country might be, in many details unlike England, and 
yet have some life; only keen in seeing spittle, and hear- 
ing the nasal twang. Candidly, Sir, can you wonder that 
a nation, new, and'pardonably sensitive to the opinion of 
the world, should be irritated against a nation of whom 
these were almost the only representatives it knew ? 

Even if the dislike had been far deeper, would it have 
been at all strange, seeing that thereby Americans would 
but have ranged" themselves with almost all other nations ! 
Leaving out of the question Germany, Spain, and Italy, 
where it can hardly be pretended that love for Enghind is 
very hearty, take the great ally— France. Choose your 
Frenchman as Carlyle "would have you choose a states- 
nian— the first speciinen hit with random orange-peel. _ Get 
under the surface of his thoughts— bring out his pet ideas 
—and, be he a gamin of the Faubourg St. Antoine, or a 
rag-picker of the Faubourg St. Marceau, or a bluff rner- 
diant of the FiaibourgMoiitmartre, or a noble of the Fau- 
bourg St. Germain— Legitimist, Orleanist, Kapoleonist, or 
Ile,jublican, you find that the idea he at this moment 
fondles most is that "the Emperor, remembering 181-^^ has 
humbled Russia, has punished Austria, and is now making 
ready to take revenge on England." 

Or take Russia, bound to •England by many common 
struggles and interests. It was my fortune during the 



Crimean war, to look out on Russian things and thoughts 
with whatever advantages were then given to those at- 
tached to the American Legation, and it was no small sur- 
prise to find that though all Russians allowed that France 
was striking far harder blows than England, France was 
respected and England hated. 

And the last news from Rio ! — Mr. Christie in his glory^ 
and the Brazilians running tlirough the streets crying, 
"Death to the English." 

May it not be that England has been somewhat in fault? 
May not the reasons for this«American dislike, which is 
seen to be shared by so many other nations, be found quite 
as much in certain English ways of dealing with the 
world, as in the utter perverseness of all other nations ? 

So much to show how that American dislike was born — 
how it was fed — how it was not the morbid thing you seem 
to suppose. Now let me show how it was dying out — nay, 
how that old dislike was killed before the present civil war 
commenced. 

And, first, the common language, when a chance was 
given it, did its work in uniting the Free States to Eng- 
land, and I cannot but be surprised that one, who rejoices 
in so learned a title as yours should have been content 
with so superficial a view as that contained in the state- 
ment that " Their language is the sole link between Eng- 
land and the United States, and it only binds the Eng- 
land of 1770 to the American of I860."* 

The sole link ! — even grant that — but do you not see, 
Dr. Russell, that a common language gives something 
more than the same words for bread and butter; that it 
must produce community or similarity of view on a vast 
range of subjects from greatest to least, and that, when 
the thoughts of two nations are thus tied together, the 
men of the two nations begin to be tied together? 

No Western hamlet so rude that it does not contain ad- 
mirers of Wordsworth, Tennyson, Dickins, Hughes, and 
the rest; few puli)its so remote that the spirit of Selwyn, 
or Kingsley, or Chalmers, or Robertson, or Noel, or Co- 
lenso has not reached them ; few men so ignorant as not 
to know when a valiant blow is struck iH England for 
truth or riglit. 

♦Vol. ii., p. 37-8. 



A few years since when one of my colleagues died, it 
was inscribed on his monument as a tliins^ to insure vene- 
ration, " He was a scholar of Arnold, of Rugby." A few 
months since I saw a strong man in a little interior village 
ready to shed tears at the death of Buckle, and at the loss 
America had thereby sustained. A few weeks since I 
heard a young American merchant say very naively to a 
Woolwich functionary, who was expounding certain regu- 
lations concerning foreigners, "But you don't consider 
Americans foreigners, do you ?" Thousands of examples 
could be given to show that the common language, instead 
of the filmy thread you think, was a strong cord extend- 
ing from every great mind in England to the bes: minds 
of every one of our little villages, drawing them and the 
men they influenced out of the old dislike into sympathy, 
not, perhaps, with the English Government, but with all 
that was good and true in the English people. 

Nay, you seem yourself to get a glimpse of this when 
you say, "And yet it (England) is the only power in Eu- 
rope, for the good opinion of which the}' really seem to 
care. Let any French, Austrian, or Russian journal write 
what it pleases of the United States, it is received within- 
difterent criticism or callous head-shaking. But let a Lon- 
don paper speak, and the whole American press is de- 
lighted or furious."* 

Despite a too evident partiality for a portion of the 
London press, there is great truth in that. Would that it 
had pleased you to get at it and make it known, rather 
than to encrust it with showy phrases. 

And, kind as were the feelings spreading among the 
people at large, there was even a better spirit in the young 
men who during the last ten years have been issuing from 
the Northern Colleges to lay hold upon public opinion. 
The Anglo-mania of the Eastern Colleges has heen noto- 
rious. During the past tive years I have stood in the midst 
of nearly- six hundred students brought together upon a 
munificent foundation laid by the Government of the Uni- 
ted States in one of .the Western States. Li this body of 
young men, constantly receiving and constantly sending 
out the best blood of the North-West, there was gratitude 
to LaFayette, there was wonder to Napoleon, but toward 

*Vol. ii., p. 37. 



8 

England there was a tendency by all their liabits of thought. 
I remember well how in scholarly discussion of Guizot's 
idea, that French civilization leads in Europe andhasbeeu 
superior to English civilization, the parlizans of England 
were to those of France as live to one. 

But to this growth in good feeling there w^as one excep- 
tion. There was one part of the United States whence 
hatred forEnglandwas never eliminated — the Slave States. 

The reason is simple. England was a "hot-bed of aboli- 
tionism," English newspapers were opposed to Slavery, (I 
refer, of course, to a period anterior to the late Scriptural 
defense of slavery by some of the foremost,) Englishmen 
were bent on thwarting filibusters, English w^omen had 
written a monster letter urging emancipation, England 
had sent us George Thompson, and had received Frederick 
Douglass and Mrs. Beecher Stowe. 

Therefore, the hatred of the South for England was al- 
ways fervent ; and the two men who \vrought most vigor- 
ously, and spoke most fiercely to keep this hatred at the 
boiling point, were Mr. Jefierson Davis and Mr. James 
M. Mason ;t and among the choicest results of the spirit 
they kept alive w'as the outrage on Captain Aldham in the 
Southern commercial capital, and the insult to the Prince 
of Wales in the Southern political capital. 

There were, indeed, some men in the iSTorth wdio fol- 
lowed the Southern leaders in tliis, but it was simply be- 
cause they followed them in everything, Whenever a 
man was found in a Free State reviling England, it was 
at once generally understood that he suj' ported the South 
and slavery. It must be owned, however, that these men 
spoke with much force. They told us that leading Eng- 
lishmen would not regret to see our land divided, tliat the 
Bweet speeches at international dinners were hugbug, that 
in case America got into trouble, English ill-will would 
show itself, that if there was a liking for emancipation 
tliere was a passion for cotton. 

But in those days before the civil war began, the disci- 
ples of these men had become a mere handful, and it was 
only at rare intervals that they w^ere strong enough to take 
advantage of some overbearing act of England, and bring 
out a little of the old ill-will. 

t The present " Confederate CommiBBioner " in London. 



9 

Having sliown how the old currents of anti-English 
feeling were ahuort entirely' dried np, let me show you 
how the new currents of ill-feeling began to flow — the new 
currents which jou nli^^take for the old. 

You judge rightly when you say, " They seemed to think 
that England was bound by her anti-Slavery antecedents 
to discourage to the utmost any attempts of the South to 
establish its independence on a basis of slavery."* Quitx^ 
true. No man among us except the small party of anti- 
English croakers doubted that, despite sundry minor mis- 
takes, England would be heartily with us. England's 
help we did not want. England's sympathy we expected 
as a thing of course. Of "course England would spurn 
the claims to sympathy of a band of men willing to deluge 
their country in blood sooner than see the slightest barrier 
to the spread of slavery ; of course England would loathe 
a Government whose chief "corner-stone," according to 
the oflicial declaration of its greatest statesman, was slavery. 
Few American patriots "will forget the sadness with 
which they came out of that dream. As unpleasant symp- 
toms were seen in the English press, earnest men said tri- 
umphantly, "A\^ait for Lord John Eussell to speak!" 
Lord John Russell spoke, and we were informed that the 
war was a mere struggle for dominion on one side and in- 
dependence on the "other; that it was like tlie Grecian 
struo:gle — Northerners resembling Turks, Southerners 
Greeks. Then flitted over news that a majority of the 
journals had declared against us; that Mr. Lincoln bad 
been hissed, and Mr. Davis applauded by the assembled 
youthful wisdom of Oxford ; that tin overwhelming ma- 
jority of a debating union at Cambridge had decided their 
question in favor of the South; then came huzzas as 
peaceful American ships were burned by a privateer ; then 
soft reproofs of Southern atrocities, and loud praise^ for 
the vigorous Southern policy of which these atrocities 
were the essential part ; then denunciations at an^y sever- 
ity on the part of the North, and taunts for Northern 
weakness in policy, caused by reluctnnce to be^ severe; 
then a high carnival of abuse and caricature. Thus be- 
gan the new current of dislike for England. It was this 
new" current which you saw, not the old. 

*Vol. i., p. G5. 



10 

Even if this dislike were far stronger, it would not, I 
think, approacli the ill-feelinc^ shown by great numbers in 
Eno:hind toward America, 'No one can fail to be struck 
by it in railway cars, steamers, onmibusses, shops, debating 
clubs, private residences. I have never heard in America 
any such bitter expressions against England, as in Eng- 
land against America. The first kindness s ^own me on a 
recent visit to England was when an Englishman pointed 
out and exulted over a steamer preparing to run the block- 
ade. I have heard a speaker rejoice because " that repub- 
lic of blackguards is ffone forever." I have heard a Bond- 
street bookseller, while bowing an aristocratic pation to 
the door, declare that the news from Fredericksburg did 
not please him ; that he was sorry the Yankees liad not 
lost more. You may say that these were men of a low 
class. Grant it; but I never saw in America the man of 
a class so low as to rejoice over the blood of ten thousand 
Englishmen slain in one battle, and to clamor for more. 

This awakening of old hates on both sides both of us 
regret ; my only hope is that the voices of the "nobodies" 
who fear not to brave the storm, and to show their good- 
will toward a nation strnggling for life or death with 
slavery, will ring out louder and longer than the voices of 
our revilers, and that the kind words of the minority will 
be remembered when the scoffs of the majority are forgot- 
ten. So long as Mill, and Bright, andEorster, and Milnes, 
and the rest of the heroic brood of " nobodies " live, 
America cannot utterly hate England. 

Let me call V(nir attention to another error in your 
"Diarv," also fundamental. You convev the idea that 
Americans are utterly intolerant of criticism, that so long 
cs a tourist praises everything all goes well ; that so soon 
as he blames anything all goes ill ; you support the idea 
by a quotation from i)e Tocqueville'.* 

The remark of the great French Arriter was doubtless 
made, like some harsh criticisms toward the end of your 
second volume, during a momentary loss of temper. The 
whole force of his statement was broken at once by the 
reception of his book in America. No man has cut more 
mercilessly than he into some of the most cherished theo- 
ries of American Democracy. No man has labored more 

*Vol. ii., p. 298. 



11 

vigoi'ouslj to prove many things defects which we con- 
sider beauties. Yet vou iind the ''Democracy in Amer- 
ica " on the shelves of every earnest collegian and every 
asjiiring lawyer. The name of De Tocqueville is hon- 
ored from one end of the land to the other. 

Why? Simply because lie had a mind large enough to 
be fair. At neither of his visits did he seek to please a 
coterie in Europe, nor did he allow his view to be ob- 
structed by a coterie in America. Whether in Judge 
Spencer's library at Albany, or in I)e Beaumont's canoe at 
Siigiriaw, his whole aim was to get at the great truths good 
for all men to hear. He traveled much and endured much, 
but he never pours out his soul in dissertations on the hor- 
rors of milk-drinking and tobacco chewing. 
' So too Von liaumer, ^lichel Chevalier, Ampere. Tliey 
said many severe things, but they were none the less hon- 
ored. In them there was none of that patronizing way, 
which seems the predestined sin of English tourists ; none 
of those attempts at wit, which compare with the real 
thing, as London Porter with sparkling St. Peray. 

Let me tell you frankly why you and your sprightly 
letters were disliked. It was desired on all sides that 
you should be as accurate as possible in your criticisms ; 
but the idea soon spread that you had much unction in 
propliesying ditficulties which never came, and in making 
great use of the "I told you so" style over those which did 
come. It was thought that when the question M^as be- 
tween a body of men avowedly fighting their country to 
perpetuate slavery, and a body of men seeking to save 
their country, and quite generally hoping to cripple slav- 
ery, you preferred the side wliere you found the can- 
vas-backed ducks, the mellowed Burgundy, the men most 
resembling'mend>ers of the London Clubs. It was known 
that the newspiper which employed you had commenced 
"a crusade against our countr}-, and it was thouglit that you 
sometimes showed something of its spirit — looking down 
upon us as Jupiter upon frogs. 

Undoubtedly, also, the non-fulfilment of so many of your 
early prophecies, and the awkward work which the nation- 
al patriotism made with your famous statement regarding 
the complete a|)athy of our people, shook national respect 
for your infallibility. Then, too, the hardy farmers, into 



12 

whose life you penetrated far enoiigli to see that they wore 
sombre c'othing, and wiiittled on court-days — but whom I 
saw, wlien tlie news came from Fort Sumter, with tears 
streaming dowa their clieeks, hurrying from their farms to 
ofler themselves and their sons to their country — those 
men whom I saw, in one of the little unromantic towns 
you caricature, form two companies on Sunday after service 
— those men did not stop to learn your merits, but simply 
considered you as but one more English tourist of the old 
sort, skipping joyfully from Xortli to South, and South to 
JTorth, buzzing unpleasantly over the battle-fields where 
lay their dead sons and brothers, and so at last they lifted 
up their hard hands and tried to brush you off. 

Such were the reasons why you were not always treated 
as you should have been ; and I cannot forbear adding 
that, in the opinion of men whom we both hold in respect, 
had there been, hoth in your " letters " and " Diary," a lit- 
tle less stress laid on your petty discomforts and our petty 
barbarisms — a little broader view on the great cpiestions at 
issue — a little more allowance for pardonable faults, and, 
above all, a little better preservation of your temper toward 
the last, — you would have gained for your criticisms close 
study and for j-ourself lasting esteem. 

Yet I think you are mistaken in supposing that the feel- 
ing toward you was entirely or mainly a feeling of dislike. 
A num so frank as yourself in declaring the truth to others 
will not blame me tor assurino; you that at last you were 
far more frequently laughed at than scolded at. Your ac- 
count of the nicknames and caricatures bestowed upon you 
is correct. The people generally figured you as the tradi- 
tiorudly stout English gentlenuin, fussy, meddlesome, mak- 
ing much of a learned title, using that English accent which 
is not duly appreciated by Americans, making prophecies 
which constantly came to nought. The threatening letters 
on wiiich you naturally la}' so much stress, were, without 
doubt, additional evidences of that fault in our people 
which you condemn elsewhere — want of respect for distin- 
guished men — in short, a poor sort of practical jokes. 

The assertion that there was needed in your book some- 
what more kindliness may be thought unjust. To cite 
proofs from the end of the book, where Mr. Stanton's 
course causes an evident ebulition, would be unfair. Let 



13 

me cite them from the first part — from the story of your 
first hour in New York. 

You say that, after leaving the Jersey City ferry, you 
went " rattling over a most abominable pavement, plunging 
into mud-holes, squasliing through snow-heaps in ill-lighted 
narrow streets of low, mean-looking, wooden houses,"* &c. 
I have passed scores of times to and from the aforesaid 
ferry, "up all manner o' streets," by every avenue which 
the most bewildered coachman could take; many of them 
I have found narrow, ill-lighted and muddy — nearl}^ as 
mucli so as some far more pretentious streets in London. 
In some of them one might find a few houses of wood ; but 
anything like " streets of low, meati-looking, wooden 
houses," no one has seen there within twenty years. 

This is, indeed, but a straw. Let me show another straw 
in the current flowing through the next page, 

" At intervals there towered up a block of brickwork and 
stucco, with long rows of windows lighted up, tier above 
tier, and a swarming crowd passing in and out of the por- 
tals, which were recognized as the barrack-like glory of 
American civilization — a Broadway monster hotel."t 

You may think it over-sensitiveness, but the phase "bar- 
rack-like glory of American civilization " seems far more 
sonorous than kind. American civilization is as yet far 
from what we hope for it — but its glory is not the hotel. 

And if that part of your first hour betrays vrant of kind- 
liness, another part betokens want of fairness. You know 
well that in England, more than in any other country, the 
culture of other nations is judged by the reality of their 
architecture. Why then rob the great Broadway hotels of 
what little merit they possess by speaking of them as 
"blocks of brick-work and stucco?" You certainly saw 
them often enough by daylight to know that not one is 
stuccoed. Not one has any of the yellow plastered mag- 
nificence of Regent-street. Nearly every one is of granite, 
or brown stone, or marble. 

Then the frequent mention of mud, in the passage 
quoted, and elsewhere. That the streets in the better 
American cities after a snow-storm, are bad, must be al- 
lowed ; but that their main streets are ever mudd}', when 
judged by a London standard, must be denied. It is prob- 

*Yol. i. p. 12. +Vol. i. p. 13. 



14 

ably the excellent water-snpply in New York, Philadelphia, 
Boston, and many smaller cities, which has so accustomed 
the people to tolerably clean streets, that a day ot the mire 
80 common during winter in Piccadilly, Regent-street, the 
Strand, and Oxford-street, would almost provoke a rebel- 
lion. I have walked in Broadway when recently-fallen 
snow was tronblesome, and have at vitrious times seen 
proofs that street-commissioners are not immaculate, but 
anything to equal the sticky pa^te of mud and soot in which 
one slijis and is bespattered during winter, in the main 
streets of London, I never >aw. 

xVs to mud in Washington, we all acknowledge that the 
usually bad state of the streets there, must have been ren- 
dered tar worse by*the tramp of thousands. on tho;:sands of 
soldiers. Of your being carried otf your legs by the water 
of a street gutter, "which was literally above my lii[is,"* 
and the rest, all declare it inexplicable; buL we are willing 
to believe it for the same reason that Sir James Stephen 
believed in the miracles of the Archdeacon Paris, or that 
so many good men hold to Mr. Ari-owsmith's vision of a 
series of duels in an American railway car — that is, be- 
cause the testimon}'^ is unimpeachable. 

Having found fault with so many statements, I make 
haste to thank you for quite as many. You complain of 
our system of street conveyance, and justly. A worse sys- 
tem exists not in the civilized world. The cab system, so 
useful and reasonable in Europe, is, in America — thanks 
to the monopoly enjoyed by hackmen — unknown. A more 
inconvenient plan for the public, and a more short-sighted 
plan for the owners of public vehicles could not be devised. 

Your criticism, too, of our hotel system is just. An 
American hotel before organization is very often excellent, 
but after organization it is frequently wretched. For the 
first step taken by the proprietors is frequently to enthrone 
in it some individual with little brains, much gold chain, 
and immense self-esteem, and to invest him with the pow- 
ers of a Neapolitan Bourbon. Mr. Everett, Mr. Bancroft, 
or Mr. Seward, enter in gentlemen's dress and style, and, 
if unrecognized, they are mercilessly relegated to the skies, 
or to apartments as near them as the sovereign in the office 
controls. Wash. Goss, Conductor on the Saccharissa and 

'Vol. ii. p. 379. ' 



15 

Swampville Railroad, or Jeft. Boss, Agent of the Iloosier 
River Steamboat Company, enter loud and radiant with 
jewels, and they are waited upon to the first floor. 

Then, too, the bill of fare is often splendid, but to catch 
the waiters frequently enough to get a Christian man's 
dinner, or to make them understand the names of any but 
the plainest dishes, is in very many hotels a miracle. 

You are also entirely right in blaming the wretched ar- 
ransj-ements for warmth and ventilation on almost all our 
railways. I trust that Mr. John Murray will, some day, 
by means of his hand-book indications, aid in reforming 
these abuses in America, as he has done in the rest of the 
world. 

It is also gratifying to see that you are sound on the sa- 
liva question. 

But I come to some of your judgments on more impor- 
tant matters in American life where you are manifestly 
wrong. 

Having stated that "in New Orleans, Montgomery, Mo- 
bile, Jackson, and Memphis, there is a reckless and violent 
condition of society unfavorable to civilization, and but 
little hopeful of the future," you say, " I'he state of legal 
protection for the most serious interests of man, considered 
as a civilized and social creature, which prevails in Amer- 
ica, could not be tolerated for an instant, and would gen- 
erate a revolution, in the worst governed country in Eu- 
rope."* 

Now, Dr. Russell, although the portly Englishman with 
whom I recently crossed the ocean might be excused for 
taking a bowie-knife to England as a souvenir of his trip 
from New York to Niagara, and although it was the most 
natural thing in the world for him to have a pocket made 
for it at the back of his neck, wherewith to astonish his 
English friends, you have no excuse. Though the state of 
things be so terrible as you describe it in the Soutbern 
cities you have named, you know that throughout the Free 
States there is no such insecurity. Why not have stated 
this ? Why : ot have stated the great reason wuy for years 
life and propert}' have been in the North secure, aiid in the 
South the sport of pistol and bowie-knife ? That you 
should neglect this all-important distinction in your "Let- 

•Yol. U. p. 39. 



.16 

tcrs " Americans can understand; but your "Diary" was 
not to be puljlished in tbe Times. 

And if tbat neglect was owing to hick of time or space, 
wby drag in tbe statement tbat, " Tbe most absoUito and 
despotic rule under wbicb a man's life and property are 
safe, is better than tbe largest measure of democratic free- 
dom wliieb deprives the freeman of any security for either." 

For tliis proclamation in this place must seem as utterly 
superfluous to any fair man, as the Excelsior banner in the 
bands of Longfellow's Alpine climber seemed useless to 
Albert Smith. If it is a statement of your taste in politics, 
the onl}'^ answer needed is tbat the great majority in Amer- 
ica can not agree with 3'ou, for they would prefer the most 
stormy democracy to tlie most sunny despotism. If it is 
meant to convey tbe idea tbivt life or property are a whit 
less safe in the Free States of America than under any Eu- 
ropean monarchy, you can be refuted in an instant. Is life 
or property more secure in Spain, or Italy, or Russia ? 
ISTay, take your own England. Have not the people of 
your metropolis been in paroxysms of fear and rage during 
this whole winter, at the want of security for lile and prop- 
erty? Both of us have traveled thousands of miles in ev- 
ery direction in America, and neither of us when in the 
Free States has feared to go where he pleased. Though 
England has sent America many expert criminals, neither 
of us, I dare say, ever hesitated to take the nearest way 
between any two points in any Northern city. How is it 
in London ? It is but a few weeks since kind friends in 
the great metropolis made it a part of their duty to tell me 
what streets were to be avoided after four o'clock in the 
afternoon — and those streets were often broad and in the 
heart of the city. Compare, too, if you will, the security 
in the country at large. I can name many large counties 
in America where a murder has not been committed in 
tvventv voars ; of how many assembla^rcs of the same size 
could that be said in England ? And if you speak of secu- 
rity of property from its worst foes, has America ever sur- 
passed the frauds ot Paul and Roupell, and a score which 
liave l»een within a few years paraded in your public prints ? 
Ma}^ it not be. Dr. liussell, that in this, as in many other 
things, you have reasoned rather from your theory of what 
every republic must be, than from your observation of what 
tbe American Republic really is ? 



17 

You also find fault with a want of veneration in many 
of our people. It is a fault ; but, after all, is it worse than 
its opposite ? ISTo Englishman can be more painfully struck 
by the want of veneration in many Americans, than Amer- 
icans are pained by servility in many Englishmen. I re- 
call a guide at one of the great English castles whose ma- 
nia for taking oif his hat and bowing at my least word was 
so distressing that at last I gave up the dearest privilege a 
Yankee knows, that of asking questions. It was the only 
way to be relieved from that nightmare of servility. 

You lay stress also on the American use of patriotic 
phrases. As expounding your views take your account of 
General Scott's speech to a crowd at Wasliington : 

" Out the General went to them, and addressed a few 
w^ords to his audience in the usual style about '•rallying 
round, and dying gloriously,' and 'old flag of our country,' 
and all that sort of thing."* 

There is in this a trifle too much of the usual English de 
haul en has manner. Let that pass ; but, Sir, did there 
never flash into your mind a suspicion that the words you 
quote might mean something ? May it not have been that 
an old general who had, for half a century, shown that he 
loved Ills country better than life, was deeply in earnest? 
May it not have been that those listening volunteers — 
assembled from all parts of the North — ottering proper- 
ty, family ties, and life, were in earnest, and that the words 
so ridiculous to you were to tliem good words — appealing 
to their souls ? I saw many of them go from the villages 
of ]^ew York and the West, and from my own lecture- 
room ; near relatives, dear friends, much-loved pupils were 
among them. I know what high motives were theirs ; 
Avhat "homes they left ; what hopes they sacrificed ; what 
sad fate many cheerfully accepted. I have heard quiet last 
words from them as noble as any in the records of Roman 
devotion. I think of their graves, and I ask, do you not 
take too much upon you when you so sneeringly speak of 
that communion between the veteran General and men 
like these, as "in the usual style," and "all that sort of 
thing?" 

In various parts of ^^our work you deprecate American 
boasting. Yon are quite right ; yet, woukl it not have beei^, 

*Vol. i. p. 106. i ~ ~~ " 



18 

more fair to own that it is a failing which the Yankee 
comes by quite naturally? What are " Rule Britannia," 
and the like, but mothers of Fourth-of-Jul}^ orations ? 
What toast of American general or Admiral ever resounded 
so loudly and came to nought so ludicrously as the invita- 
tions given by a certain English admiral to a dinner at St. 
Petersburgh ? I have heard an English speaker boast that 
English soldiers had never retreated in any battle ; and, 
though I have heard some amazing specimens of "• tall 
talk " in America, they were merely nothing compared to 
the calmly majestic brag of an English deliatcr, who, ar- 
guing for the entln'onement of Prince Alfred in Greece, 
and speaking of the opposing argument that the Treaty of 
Vienna opposed it, said, " but tlie Treaty of A-^ienna has 
already been broken. It declared that no Bonaparte 
should ever ascend the throne of France, and yet a Bona- 
parte now sits on that throne ; though to confess the truth, 
Idoiii think thai England ought to have permitted it." What 
masses of innocent brag were compressed into that sen- 
tence ! But all the audience adopted the idea and ap- 
plauded; and so would I had not all my powers been ab- 
sorbed in the mental efl:brt I was making to know how 
England was to hinder France from choosing Napoleon III. 
And are you not guilty also of something much like it, 
when you say, " I am opposed to national boasting, but I 
do firmly believe that 10,000 British regulars, or 12,000 
French, with a proper establishment of artillery and cav- 
^■ry, would not only entirely repulse this army with the 
greatest ease, under competent commanders, but that they 
could attack them and march into Washington over them 
or with them, whenever they pleased."* In the light of 
old struggles between "British regulars" and the rawest 
American militia, the statement looks much like boasting; 
but when one sees you care to have two thousand more 
French than English, and remembers the war of the Cri- 
mea, you are seen to be the contributor of as splendid a 
specimen as was ever seen. 

May it not be that this fault, which you suppose peculiarly Amer- 
ican, is inherited, and is, after all, only one among the many proofs 
that " blood will tell ?" 

But nowhere are you more vigorous than in denouncing the sins 

*Vol. ii. p. 158. 



19 

of the American press. In this, too, you are right up to a certain 
point, hut was it fair to involve all in the same condemnation 1 
One of your successors has chosen to show American sentiment by 
quoting from a little journal supported by a clique in New York, 
•and whose name was never heard of by one in ten th( usand outside 
that city ; but do you not commit a similar fault in some of your 
denimciations'? 

Granted that some of our journals are vile- — especially in their 
treatment of yourself, and Great Britain — in what attribute of de- 
cency are they surpassed by many of the most influential London 
journals at this moment? 

Look at the absurdities regarding Mr. Lincoln's guillotines, and 
Gen. Butler's executions; look at the welcome given to a recent im- 
portation of American pot-house slang, regarding "long-legged Lin- 
coln," " chuckle-headed McClellan," and " Bill Seward ;" look at the 
piety shown in the Scripture defence of slavery ; look at the logic 
shown in the argument that Wilberforce would, if living, frown up- 
on the Union and Anti-Slavery side, because a son of his chooses to 
give it the cold shoulder ; as if any Wilberforce now aiive would 
deign to represent the " Clapham sect" in anything. 

Or, take matters entirely outside the American question. For 
decency, take the epithets applied by leading religious journals to 
Bishop Colenso, and by leading political journals to the clergymen 
and laymen who have taken part in the Emancipation meetings ; for 
hopeful piety take the advertisements of dealers in Church prefer- 
ment, and in " lithographed sermons impossible to be distinguished 
from ordinary handwriting;" for incorruptibility, the recent pro- 
ceedings between an English newspaper and the representative of 
Erance. 

You make some quiet fun over the carefulness of certain Ameri- 
can newspapers in chronicling the doings of Mrs. Lincoln, and wq 
will laugh with you, not doubting that afterward you will laugh with 
as at far greater absurdities of the sort in the English newspapers. 

You lay stress also on the unreliability of telegraphic news in 
American "papers. It is an evil ; but it seems to me not half so great 
an evil that, in a n vtion feverish with civil war, telegrams should 
catch the general spirit, as that newspapers in England, cool and 
collected, should submit to receive such telegrams as the Renter 
agency has often sent them. 

The bad taste of many American newspaper correspondents, as 
typified in the attempt made by one of them to draw from you de- 
tails of an evening at the President's house, you treated as it de- 
served ;* but to most Americans your merit in the premises seems 
somewhat diminished, when they see all those details spread out be- 

*Vo!. ii. p. 66, 



20 

fore the world in your " Diary." Indeed^ this letter would be want- 
ing in the frankness which you so much prize, were it to conceal the 
fact that since the publication of those details by yourself, it is very 
difficult to show to most of my countrymen, that the difference be- 
tween yourself and that New York correspondent is so much a dif- 
ference in kind as in degree. 

This brings me to that part of your work which, among Ameri- 
cans most conversant with English usages, caused more surprise 
than any other — your fullness of detail in regard to sundry social 
circles, to which you were admitted. It may have been owing to 
our provincial spirit that one of our own writers was severely criti- 
cised among us some years since for doing by England what you 
have thus done by America. Therefore, let the epithet " Poor 
President " applied to Mr. Lincoln, the story of Mrs. Lincoln's 
meanness, told upon the authority of an unnamed French master of 
languages, the mention of Mr. Seward as " bursting with the impor- 
tance of State mysteries" — and the tinge of ridicule in your sketches 
of the conversation of Gen. Scott — be acknowledged as in the purest 
taste, even though, as in Gen. Scott's case, your observations were 
made while you were his guest. But there is another point on 
which Americans cannot make such a concession. 

I take as my text your account of an evening at the house of 
"Mr. B." Having used the initial, and then having described him 
so that no one can fail to know him — having spoken graciously of 
his pictures, statues, furniture, and guests, you speak of the trouble 
one would find it to " define exactly the difference between the lus- 
trous, highly-jeweled, well-greaved Achaian of New York, and the 
very less eftective and showy creature, who will in every society 
over the world pass muster as a gentleman."* 

Your idea is not entirely clear, but if you intended to condemn 
the young New Yorkers whom you saw afterwards "at their club 
dicing for drinks, and oathing for nothing," let me assure you that 
Mr. George William Curtis taught our people long ago to despise 
them. But if, as seems more probable, it is a general criticism on 
those assembled, among whom, by reading the context, we find Mr. 
Bancroft, Mr. Horatio Seymour, Mr. Tilden, and " Mr. B.," pardon 
me for saying that Americans, no matter how bitterly opposed to 
those gentlemen politically, must deny your right. When you came 
prominently before the public, the main facts of your biography be- 
came public property, and Americans see nothing either in your 
personal annals or associations, honorable though they may have 
been, which authorizes you to sit in judgment upon the quality 0£ 
those men. 

And now a few words on the comparisons, into which your read- 
ers are led between Free-State and Slave-State society. 

*Vol. i. p. 82. 



21 

For two things struck off in the South you deserve praise. First 
of these is your sketch of a SLave-sale.* That alone would make 
every patriotic American desire success for your book. Let the 
whole world accept the errors of the " Diary," since it contains that 
sketch as their antidote. The second of these meritorious points is 
that which pricks one of the most laughable bubbles the slave-own- 
ing class are so fond of blowing. 

" We all have our little or big weaknesses. I see no traces of 
Cavalier descent in the names of Huger, Rose, Manning, Chestnut, 
and Pickens."f 

Quite right ; and a little more intercourse with the people of the 
North would have enabled you to add that were they so foolish as 
some of their Southern brethern in parading ancestors, they could 
show quite as many names honored in the history of England, 
France and Holland. 

But while you have thus cut into some Southern follies, I fear that 
you have strengthened some Southern fallacies, and among them the 
idea that on the plantations is found a higher civilization than in the 
North. 

It is evident from your sketch that you fell upon at least one fa- 
vorable specimen of Southern country life, but a close study of the 
whole country would have shown you, for one such abode of refine- 
ment in the South, twenty in the North. Many impartial accounts 
have been given of that peculiar life, and even from these you will 
find that, outside a few districts into which some rays are thi'own 
from such cities as Charleston, or Savannah, or New Orleans, it is 
very far from what is considered by the world at large, a good 
grade of civilization. Your pictures of planting life have often the 
fault of Chateaubriand's pictures of Indian life. The difference be- 
tween the real and ideal planter is quite as great as the difference 
between the real and ideal Indian. 

If, instead of whirling through long lines of Northern towns, with 
a laugh at their comical names, you could have given them some of 
the time bestowed on canvas-backs and jjrairie-chickens, you would 
have found great numbers of men who, in their lives and houses, in- 
dicate a much nearer approach to. the best European culture ihau 
you found on Southern plantations. 

^.„. But to compare the two phases of ximerican civilization at all 
points would require a quarto ; let me then narrow the comparison 
to two leading points, which you have yourself suggested ; one, as 
to material, the other, as to intellectual development. 

Your mistakes on the first can be be best illustrated by an extract 
from the account of your journey from the Southern extremity of 
Illinois to Chicago. 



*Yol. i. chap. 22. tVol. i. p. 171. 



22 

" It would be very wrong to judge of the condition of a people 
from the windows of a railway carriage, but the external aspect of 
the settlements along the line, far superior to that of shive hamlets, 
does not equal my expectations."* Then follow some sketches not 
at all flattering to the Illinois vilhiges and farm-houses. 

Let me call your attention to two very important elements in the 
comparison which strangely do nijt seem to have occurred to you. 

First, the fact that until recently Southern Illinois has been no- 
toriously imder the influence of neighboring Slave-State society. 
Had you looked into its geography^ you would have seen that it is 
deeply wedged into slave-owning regions ; had you looked into its 
history, you would have seen that the great body of its" early inhab- 
itants came from Slave States ; had you asked any of your neighbors 
on the railway, they would have told you that on account of the 
mental and moral darkness arising from Slave State influences, 
Southern Illinois has been known throughout the Union under the 
nick-name of "Egypt." Yet this is the district you choose as rep- 
resentative of the North ! 

Again, a great number of the towns and farm-houses you noted, 
have sprung up since the recent opening of the Illinois Central Kail- 
way. To be disappointed because they do not yet greatly excel far 
older towns in the Slave States, is as unreasonable as to lament be- 
cause a child of four years has not out-grown a dwarf of forty. 

Take now the other leading compariscni. 

Describing a planter's mansion, which was certainly of a type far 
fi'om common in the South, you say : " Paintings from Italy illus- 
trate the walls in juxtaposition with interesting portraits, * * * 
and one portrait of Benjamin West claims for itself such. honor as 
his own pencil can give. An excellent libi'ary, flllcd with collec- 
tions of French and English classics, and with those ponderous edi- 
tions of Voltaire, Rousseau, the ' Memoires pour servir ' books of 
travel and history which delighted our forefithers in the last centu- 
ry, and m.any works of >\nierican and general history, afford ample 
occupation for a. rainy day."f 

The idea strengthened bv this, in connection with certain other 
passages is, that though the material developn.ent — the stalk or 
trunk of civilization — that which comes by working and trading, is 
stronger at the north, the intellectual development — the bloom of 
civilization — that which comes of leisure and culture, is stronger at 
the South. 

Let me point out an easy way of convincing yourself of the error 
of this; let me show how the free system proves its superiority over 
the slave system, as well in the bloom as in the stalk of civilization. 

Ask any one conversant with the afliiirs of Turner, or Ary Schef- 

*Yol, ii. p. 83. tVol. i. p. 187. 



23 

fer, or Meissonnier, or Asclienbaeh, in what part of America are the 
great majority of their pictures which have crossed the ocean. Ask. 
also the leading sculptors. Go into the galleries of Europe, and put 
the same question to the best copyists. You shall find that an im- 
mense majority of their woiks are spreading good influences in the 
Free States. 1 could name to you inland towns, both east and west, 
where "loan exhibitions" of paintings and sculpture have been held 
such as no possible combination of planters could have produced. 
As to Benjamin West and Copley, whom you mention as contribu- 
ting to the beauty of the planter's establishment, a very little study 
of ibeir biographies would show you that their main American worKS 
are to be found in the Free States. The picture which many of 
West's admirers thought his greatest, " gives such honor as his pen- 
cil can give " to the collection of a gentleman in Ohio, 

I might present many similar facts, but I shall simply ask you to 
look over the list of successful American painters and sculptors, and 
to note how, for one from the Slave States, there are a dozen from 
the Free States. 

So, too, as to books. I will not lay stress on the fact that the 
Census Reports show the public and private libraries of the newest 
Free States, in almost every case, superior to those of the oldest 
Slave States. Question the men in London who have acted as 
agents for Americans in the purchase of the choicest books, you shall 
find some facts still more surprising. There shall be given you the 
names of several private libraries in the Free States, each more 
valuable than all the private libraries of the Slave States together, 
and you shall find that some of the best of thase are far inland. 
You shall find that there are private libraries a thousand miles and 
more from the great cities of the East, where are ranged all the 
books you name as the glories of your planter friend's library, but 
where they are by no means the choicest books. To speak only of 
the newest and least wealthy of the North-Wcstcrn States, you can 
find excellent private collections of books, not merely in their pi'in- 
cipal cities but in the interior which seemed to you so ludicrously 
rude. Come again through them — do not content yourself with such 
an exploration as the one you have already made, hurrying over 
three hundred miles in ten hours — and you shall be shown some of 
these collections; and, among others, in a little village twenty miles 
from a railway, at the house of a gentleman who, amid the cares of 
business, has found time for kindlier pursuits, you shall find not only 
choice paintings and engravings, but a large library of rare v/orks 
in early English and Shakspearian literature, such as a duke might 
envy. 

For these libraries, quietly growing in all parts of the Free States, 
the shops and stalls of Paris, and London, and Berlin have been ran- 
sacked. Many a Caxton or Aldine or Elzevir has been carried off 



24 

over the heads of English bidders to grace some little Northern li- 
brary. Note, too, the feet that within a few years several celebrated 
private libraries in France and Germany have been bought for pub- 
lic or private libraries in America, and that these have gone almost 
without exception into the Noithern States. 

Of course I do not claim this as the best growth of civilization. 
Good is the accumulating of good old books, but f;ir better is the 
originating of good new books, and here, too, Free-State civilization 
justifies itself. Look into the list of American writers known to the 
world, and make the comparison between those who have risen in 
the Free and those in the Slave States. 

And now, in all diffidence, let me make a few notes on a very 
different matter — your reasoning on American military affairs. 

After enjoying your description of military scenes in former 
time;?, it is too late to deny your excellence in your peculiar depart- 
ment, but may you not have erred in the methods of criticism used 
in your '• Diary ?" An immense army had to be raised in a few^ 
weeks, an army which has finally become the largest in the world, 
and in a nation which had been fi)r many years so devoted to peace, 
that hardly the germ of a military organization had been preserved. 
To have given it a fruitful criticism would have been a kindness, but 
merely sneering at its short comir.gs could do no good. Even when 
it showed some good symptoms, your praise has a taste not at all 
pleasant. For example : 

" The men like artillery and take to it natui'ally, heing in that 
respect something like the natives of India." 

1 have italicised the portion which could hardly have a pleasant 
sound to an American. So eminent an authority as yourself could 
not surely have been at a loss for a comparison far more pleasing. 
You knowj of course, that the desire to serve in the artillery proves 
not half so strong a resemblance to Sepoys as to the more thought- 
ful portion of European armies. Should you doubt that, go into ihe 
lecture-rooms of a German university, and you will find the artillery 
uniform on nearly every student serving out his military term. 

As to your account of the battle of Bulls' Run, I am willing to 
allow that, humiliating as was that event, your sketch contrasts 
most favorably with the comments of some of your countrymen. 
A prominent Review declared that the Americans were showing the 
world some things such as had never been seen before, and one of 
these things was the panic at Bulls' Run. 

It would have been a graceful act for you to have forestalled such 
criticism in your "Letters," or to have answered it in your "Diary." 
Not to speak of more recent panics, you could have told them that, 
at the beginning of the great wars of the French Revolution, two 
separate armies, one under Dillon, the other under Biron, at the first 
sight of the enemy threw down their arms, ran with all their might, 



25 

and in one' case murdered the general who attempted to rally them. 
And you might have added that these were the soldiers who a few 
years later swept over Europe. But this is a slight sin of omission ; 
let me show in another criticism a sin of commission. Take your 
notice of the capture of Fort Clarlc and Fort Hattcras : 

" It would seem as if the North were perfectly destitute of com- 
mon sense. Here they are as rampant because they have succeeded 
with an overwhelming fleet in shelling out the defenders of some 
poor unfinished earthworks on a spit of sand on the coast of North 
Carolina, as if they had already crushed the Southern rebellion. 
Thev afteet to consider this achievement a counterpoise to Bulls'' 
Run."* 

Now, although the success at Fort Hatteras was not so striking 
as many since, it would seem to be something greater than the pet- 
ty alFair you make it, when it is known that the rebel loss in killed, 
wounded and prisoners was nearly nine hundred. But far more 
than that. Your account seems to prove not so clearly that the 
North is "perfectly destitute of common sense " as that your ac- 
knowledged ability to prophecy evils, which did not come, was fully 
equalled by your inability to prophesy good which did come. For 
you foresaw not one of the successes to which the Hatteras aftiiir 
was the necessary prelude, successes like that at Roanoke Island, 
where the Confederates lost, beside killed and wounded, 2,500 pris- 
oners and 40 cannon ; like that at Newbern, where they lost what 
was far more precious to them. Strange that one so gifted in mili- 
tary affairs should not have seen that the conquest was not a "spit 
of sand," but a most important inland communication by water ! 
Strange that one so skilled in prophecy should not have foreseen 
what tollowed so soon from the Hatteras affair — -the conquest and 
occupancy of the whole North Carolina coast. 

SoiTie of the most laua'hable fiiults of En£rlish tourists are made 
in their sketches on Aemrican geography, and you seem to follow 
here in the steps of 3'our predecessors. Certainly, you were as lu- 
dicrously at fault in regard to North Carolina, when you reasoned 
upon the conquest of the "spit of sand," as in regard to Massa- 
chusetts when you spoke of one of her regiments as containing 
"fishermen from New Haven,'"' \ or as in regard to Kentucky when 
you mistook Nashville for Louisville. 

One thing more in this department of your work. Your mode 
of gaining ideas of the temperament of the army must seem very 
fallacious to any one who has tried to study a foreign people. 

To find what information random conversation with grumblers 
can give you, try any army ; but let me suggest an easier way of 
convincing yourself of the absurdity of your method. 

*Vol. ii., p. Z-n. +V0I. ii., p. .319. 



26 

Go into the neighborhood of Westminster Abbey, pretend your- 
self a foreigner, and take one of the guides who lurk there. Give 
him his cue, and you shall be told the most astounding stories of 
the miseries of the people — their hate for monarchy, hierarchy and 
aristocracy — their yearning f«,.r democracy ; you shall have not 
merely hints of treason, but sketches of plots. It is much to be 
feared that some worthy Americans have, by these individuals, been 
hindered trom the calmness of thought so necessary in those hal 
lowed precincts. 

But your reasoning on American military matters is by no means 
so objectionable as your reasoning on political matters. 

Thus : "The American, when he seeks to prove that the Southern 
States have no right to revolt from a confederacy of States created 
by revolt, has, by the principles on which he justifies his own revo- 
lution, placed between himself and the European a great gulf in 
the level of argument. According to the deeds and words of Amer- 
icans, it is difficult to see why South Carolina should not use the 
rights claimed for each of the Thirteen Colonies."* 

A true American labors under no such difficulty as you suppose, 
for he has taken the pains to examine the sul)ject, and knows that 
the two cases are entirely different. lie knows that in the su- 
preme Executive department, the Colonies had never been allowed 
a share ; whereas, the States now in rebellion have always enjoyed 
nearly a monopoly! lie knows that in the supreme Judicial de- 
partment, the Colonies had no part ; whereas, the States in rebel- 
lion had flir more than their proportion of Judges in the Supreme 
Court up to the moment of the rebellion ! He knows that in the 
Supreme Legislature, the Colonies had not one representative ; 
whereas, the States in rebellion have always had hxr more than their 
share of representatives — being represented not only for themselves, 
but for a large proportion of their slaves, whom, though for other 
purposes they called property, for this purpose they called persons. 

The Colonies had been ill-treated ; the rebel States have always 
been petted. 1 he Colonies exhausted every argument, and lin- 
gered long before they took up arms ; the rebel States scorned ar- 
gument and flew to arms at once. The Colonies rose against laws 
w'hich had been made ; the rebel States rose against laws which 
they professed to fear were to be made ! The Colonies revolted to 
preserve the freedom of three niillion white men; the Southern 
States revolted to perpetuate the enslavement of four million black 
men. 

To justify the Southern States in revolting for slavery, because 
their ancestors revolted for freedom, is no more logical than to 
justify your Rebecca riots against toll-gates by the uprising which 
secured Magna Charta. 

♦Vol. i., p. 14. 



27 

In order to correct another error, involved in the passage quoted, 
it seems necessary to inform you that the American Republic is 
not living under the " x\rticles of Confederation" — that they were 
discarded nearly eighty years since, having been superseded in 
1787 by the present excellent Constitution. Let me therefore, as 
briefly as possible, show what you and so many of your country- 
men find it so "diflicult to see." 

The "Articles of Confederation" were made in 1777 for a League, 
and therefore, very naturally, their preamble commenced with the 
words, "'We the delegates of States ;'''' the "Constitution" was 
made for a much stronger general government, therefore, you find 
the first words of its preamble, " We the People of the United 
States:' 

The League, contempleted in the Articles of Confederation, failed 
utterly ; therefore the preamble of the Constitution declares that 
its purpose is to " form a viore perfect union.'' 

I trust that these first letters of the American Constitutional Al- 
phabet will be a hint to you that the founders of our Republic 
never intended that a State should forcibly seize upon the property 
of the Genen.l Government, tear down its flag, and fire upon its 
defenders. 

Americans must also object to your careless way of judging the 
political capacity of our people Englishmen in America seem ever 
in dread of mobs ; but despite I'egret at the tendency indicated, 
our people have laughed well over one of the famous phophecies of 
your "Letters" which you have forgotten to suppress in your 
"Diary." 

" I have resolved to go to Boston, being satisfied that a great 
popular excitement and uprising will, in all probability, taice place 
on the discharge of the Commissioners from Furt Wai'ren."* 

You seem to have forgotten to chronicle the fact, that not the 
slightest uprising took place at Boston, or anywhere else, at the 
discharge of the Commissioners. Our people had wit enough to 
see that when America gave up two detestable men, England gave 
up a detestable principle. 

Nor do our legislators fare better than our people. Knowing 
that so many men read books in Talleyrand's fashion — by the index 
alone — it seems hardly fair to put in your table nf contents, "An 
ex pugilist turned Senator,"f to point out the fi^ct that in your 
shrewdness you mistook a pugilist for a Senator. And if you re- 
tort that the mistake was natui-al, I have only to answer, that there 
have been four exhibitions in the Senate which have smacked of 
pugilism — Foo^e against Benton, Borland against Kennedy, Brooks 
against Sumner, and Salisbury against "all creation;" and the per- 

*Yol. i,, p. 428. +Yol. ii., chap. 22, Table of Contents. 



28 

son committing the assault was, in every instance, from the Slave 
States. 

So far as I know, the only professional "pugilist turned Senator" 
was, not long since, in the British Parliament. From a recent 
sketch published in England, I ilnd that John Gully, Esq., was first 
a butcher, then a prizefighter — taking part in several battles, then 
an inn-keeper, then connected with the turf — whereby he made a 
f)rtune; and then, during two sessions, a very worthy member of 
Parliament. Had Mr. Gully lived the same life, and gained the 
same promotion in America, what homilies and psalrns should we' 
have heard from the English press on the foulness of Amei~icaii 
politics ! 

As to the ETouse of Representatives, while acknowledging that 
in the struggles of these latter years, it has not preserved a deco- 
rum at all creditable, 1 will challenge you to produce, from all its 
annals, a scene so discreditable as that which took place not long 
since on the delivery of Lord C. Paget's Speech on the Navy, in 
the Plouse of Commons. The House of Representatives has often 
been fiery, but it has never been obscene. 

Another quality in your book, furnishing ample scope for criti- 
cism, is your carelessness in making very important statements. 

Thus : — " I am told a system of torture prevails there"* (at 
Sing Sing Prison.) Why not have taken the hour's ride from New 
York to that prison, and found that its tendency is toward even too 
much humanity ? Why not have looked into its history to find that 
not many years since a harsh official received the execration of the 
entire State ? You were right in exposing the abominations of the 
Louisiana prison on examination. You were wrong in condemning 
the excellencies of the New York prison without examination. 

And again, of Senator Douglas, " I was told that the enormously 
wealthy community, of which he was the idol, were permitting his 
widow to live in a state not far removed from penury ,"| Why 
not have looked into the matter long enough to find that the sub- 
scription was commenced, that the people were only anxious to 
swell it, but that a published note from the noble wife of the de- 
ceased forbade it, declaring that she did not need it. Was it ten- 
derness to that sorrowing widow, which led you in your next sen- 
tence to quote from a person whom you call "one of his friends" that 
"Senator Douglas died of bad whisky f 

Then there are other statements quite as faulty to which you do 
not even put the preface : "I am told," as in the sweet morsel you 
pres Mit to cotton-loving souls, by extolling the land on the Ala- 
bama river : "as it yields nine to eleven bales of cotton to the 
acre — worth £10 a bale at present prices "| I can give you the 

*Vol. i., p. 37. tYol. ii., p. 92. ifVol. i., p. 360. 



29 

address of a wealthy planter from that region, now in London, v.ho 
will prove to you that two bales, to the acre is a very high average 
— and that an average of three bales was never known. 

So, too, take as types of your success in obtaininoany real knowl- 
edge of the men, with whom you enjoyed most intercourse, certain 
statements regarding Mr. Seward. 

From that gentleman having founded some reasonings on state- 
ments regarding society in the South, you say, ''I doubt if he was 
ever in the South !"* Afterwards, under similar circumstances, 
you grew bolder, and will not even allow him the benefit of a 
doubt — saying, " Mr. Seward, the other day, in talking of the 
South, described them as being in every respect behind the age, 
with fashions, habits, level of thought, and modes of life belonging 
to the worst part of the last century. But still he has never been 
there himself .'"'f 

Now it is true that although the bitterest advocates of slavery 
have been allowed full scope in the North, Mr. Jefferson Davis 
having spoken freely in New England, Mr. Yancey in New York, 
and minor Southern orators having advocated treason and slavery 
everywhere, Mr. Seward, since his opposition to the extension of 
slavery, could not have visited the South — much less have spoken 
there, without almost a certainty of assassination — and that therefore 
he has, of late years, remained at his duties in the Free States. 
But it is strange that during your whole stay you should have 
missed so well-known a feature in the biography of the Secretary 
of State — a point so capital in any estimate of his knowledge of 
the men with whom he grapples — as the fact, that at the period 
when his powers were most active, he resided in one of the most 
important districts of the States now in rebellion, and that as the 
chief instructor in a High School, he had rare facilities for studying 
the institutions and characters which are developed under slavery. 

Then, too, should Macaulay's school-boy visit America, he would 
certainly secure his oft-threatened whipping if, within a month, he 
had not learned that there was once a national Whig party, that 
Mr. Seward was one of its chieftains, and that, as such, he was 
welcome anywhere in the 8outh. All tliis, added to his many 
years' intercourse with Southern men at Washington, will, I hope, 
relieve your mind of any fear arising from his want of knowledge 
of the States now in rebellion. 

There ferments occasionally in your work, a mixture of careless- 
ness and pleasantry somewhat to be regretted on your own account, 
but which no true American will ever suffer to vex him. Bubbles 
from that are such .j)hrases as "Bastilles," "lettres de cachet," 
'•quadrennial despot," and the like; also, such bits of philosophy as 

*VoI. i., p. 51. tVol. i., p. 97. 



30 

your illustration of Bayard Taylor's love for America by Prince 
Leboo's liking for his savage island. 

Tcnvard the end of the second volume, come occasional strong 
whiffs of haughtiness mingled with ill-temper. Of these is the 
circumlocution by which you class Mr. Secretary Stanton among 
"hypocrites." 1 will do you the justice to say that such passages, 
now that you have had time to recover your temper, are doubtless 
far more offensive to yourself than to those at whom you directed 
them. 

Passing all this, let us come at the great thing for which your 
book is remarkable — the Great Omission. 

The London edition from which 1 quote is in two volumes; it 
should have been in three. What you have written should occupy 
the first and third ; the second should have been left clean paper to 
be filled hereafter with the great thing of which you give no sign. 
Let me hint at it. 

When you arrived in America there was peace, and as you 
thought, apathy ; before you left it, hundreds of thousands were 
maiehing from all parts of the land toward the theatre of wav ; 
within eighteen months after your arrival, a million of men had 
been raised in the midst of a peaceful community, to brave the 
danger which bad never been expected. 

The rebellious States, at a very early period in the war, resorted to 
a rigid conscription ; the loyal States obtained nearly their whole 
number of soldiers by volunteering. Men went from every station — 
lawyers and artizans, merchants and clergymen. From universities 
abroad, young men hurried liomeward to help in the common defense. 
Every college at home became a nursery of soldiers. Every hamlet 
had its military committees, every town its barracks. For equip- 
ments, for families left, for succor of the wounded, lor support of the 
bereft, money was poured out like water. 

Of course, so vast a mass of hopes and efforts was tarnished here 
and there, but time shall remove petty blemishes. The world shall 
yet acknowledge the greatness of the movement and the sacredness 
of its motives. 

Of all this great uprising, the truly great thing in this contest, you 
give really nothing. You get glimpses here and there of the ludi- 
crous side of some accompaniments, but the one great thing you do 
not see. 

The fault which explains this astounding omission is apparently an 
utter contempt for the law of mental and moral perspective. 

A fly on your window at the Pincian may hide the dome of St. 
Peter's ; just so a soiled uniform seems to hide from your mind's eye 
the quality of a regiment, and a few boisterous officers, the spirit of 
an army. Worse than that, table-talk, colored by the prejudices of a 
clique, is seen more than once to hide from you the spirit of the whole 
nation. Take one example : 



31 

/' When the merchants, however, saw that the South was deter- 
mined to quit the Union, they resolved to avert tlic permanent Joss 
ot the great profits derived from the connection with tlie South bv 
some present sacrifices. They rushed to the platforms, the battle-cry 
was sonnded from almost every pulpit, flag raisings took place in eve- 
ry square, like the planting cf the tree of liberty in France in LS48 
and the oath was taken to trample secession under foot, and to ouench 
the fire of the Southern heart forever."* ■ 

This then, is your explanation ! Yon looked out upon a stru-o-]e 
to which not only New York, but every other part of the nation Ifad 
given Its best blood— a struggle which had been drawino- on for sev 
enty years, and you saw a paltry effort " to avert the permanent lo^s 
ot the great profits derived from their connection with the South '"' 

Clearly then, luiving had the best of opportunities to make a o,cat 
book, gm.d for all men in all time, you have been content to mate a 
clever book, the talk of a fortnight. You had a noble chance and 

10b o It. f 

One other Englishman went through a great country on the eve of 
a fearful revolution, but by his breadth of view, his seizure of real is- 
sues, his study of fruitful, sources, and his love for right he rendered 
services which the world can never forget. Look at Arthur Youn-'g 

Iravels in France," and see what you might have done ° 

A truly good book on America would not merely give its author 
lame and fortune ; it would also make the world his debtor 

Since the world cannot be expected to accept such a work from 
one ot our own nation, let England give u? its author. There are 
indeed some difficulties almost inevitable to most English writers— 
difiiculties, too, not chargeable to the country they s^tudy When 

i'^'^'r^fr'""' ^f^ ^''' ^'^^^ '^'^^^^ of ^i- Gumming monopolizing 
the fulfillments of prophecy for England, and when j^alzac made his 
shrewd remark, "There are few Englishmen who will not declare to 
you that gold and silver are better in England than anywhere else " 
they hinted at one of these difficulties. When you wrote that - the 
most frequent fault of the stranger in any land is generalizing from 
a few facts, you named another. 

But there arc in England truly learned men from whom Ameri- 
cans would receive any censure, knowing that we have to fear no 
prejudice. 

Send us such a man, and if not Mill or Cairnes, give us at least 
some one with more soul than a Liverpool cotton-broker, and more 
mmd than an Oxford Mandarin. 

So shaJl the times of frank good feeling return. Among all the 
nations,^ England and the United States freed from slavery are the 
two which ought to stand together. Between their institutions, their 



*Vol. ii. p. 111. 



31 

literatures, their beliefs, tlieir heresies, are sucli links as bind no ctlier 
countries. 

Honored shall that writer be who, by rendering justice to the Free 
States, shall remove English haughtiness and American bitterness. 
He shall have the glory which you have spurned. 

I am, Sir, 

Yours, very respectfully, 

A. D. "White. 



L&Je'lO 



yt 



